United States of America
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their independence from Great Britain and their formation of a cooperative union. The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence. A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic with a strong central government. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791. In the 19th century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states' rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world's largest. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and a founding member of NATO. The end of the Cold War left the United States as the sole superpower. United States in The Lords of Creation The United States of America was the second Earth nation to develop a capacity for space travel, following the Soviet Union. In 1962, the United States launched the Viking probe to Mars which demonstrated that that planet was life-bearing. For the rest of the twentieth century, the United States devoted as much as 20% of its national budget to its space program, which was also supported by a number of American allies: the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Organization of American States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. To allow itself to focus on space exploration, the United States shifted its terrestrial foreign policy goals from "winning" the Cold War to ensuring a stable political situation. The US's former Cold War rivals, now cooperating as the EastBloc, shared this goal and the two became partners in imposing a status quo. When Israel and several Arab states went to war in 1967, the US simply dictated terms for a ceasefire and enforced these terms on all sides at gun point. The shift of American attention away from terrestrial geopolitics allowed Charles de Gaulle to lead the once-American allied nations of Western Europe into their own alliance system which competed with both the EastBloc and the American bloc. Since the new European Union lagged well behind the Americans in terms of space technology, and was not able to compete for influence on Venus and Mars, the American government did not particularly care. In the 1980s, the US and its allies established permanent bases on Venus and Mars. The Venusian base was located within the territory of Kartahown, the most advanced civilization on the planet, in a special autonomous district which the Kings of Kartahown had granted to the US. The Martian base, however, was built deep in the wilderness, a sizable distance from the minor city of Zar-tu-Kan. This was an inversion of the EastBloc strategy; the Communists had built their Venusian base in a remote location and their Martian base near Dvor Il-Adazar, the seat of the dominant civilization on Mars. The Americans had calculated that the Kartahownians could be overawed by demonstrations of American scientific and technological sophistication into a pliable alliance, but that the Kings Beneath the Mountain were sophisticated enough to attempt to compete with humans and would best be given a wide berth. After a generation, the American public began to grow weary of the extremely expensive space program, which by the nature of things was incapable of doing anything but draining untold billions of dollars from the treasury year after year. Waning support for space exploration was shored up, however, when American astronaut Marc Vitrac discovered the Diadem of the Eye and sent it back to the US for further study in 1990. By 2000, ten years of study of the Diadem had yielded absolutely no information whatsoever. However, its existence, as well as other discoveries on Venus, demonstrated the existence of the Lords of Creation, a Class II or Class III civiliation which had no qualms about interfering in human events. The daunting knowledge that an advanced civilization might seek to manipulate their lives for its own purposes convinced Americans, and indeed all terrestrial humans, that their only option was to pursue Class I, II, and III capabilities of their own as quickly as possible. United States in Natucket United States in ''The Peshawar Lancers'' The United States of America did not survive as a cohesive nation-state after the Fall. Texas and California retained some semblance of civilization and rebuilt themselves in the century that followed. Without the U.S., the Angrezi Raj laid claim to the entirety of North America. United States in Domination After the United States gained it's independence during the American Revolutionary War, British Royalists fled to Crown Colony of Drakia which eventually became the bitter enemy of the U.S. in the centuries to come known as the Domination of Draka. After the War of 1812, the U.S. annexes Canada and Mexico after the Mexican–American War due to the "Young America" faction (since, it is implied, the addition of numerous Northern, Free-Soil states following the conquest of Canada strengthened Southern demands for a reciprocal campaign to increase the number of slave-holding states with representation in Congress). William Walker's Southern adventurers conquer Central America; while Cuba, Hispaniola, Hawaii and the Philippines are annexed in 1854. During the American Civil War, the Draka supply massive amounts of aid to the Confederacy, including steam-powered armored cars. However, the Union still wins the Civil War (with the help of large numbers of Mexican conscripts), and annexes Walker's Central American empire. Cuba, Hispaniola, Hawaii, and the Philippines are granted statehood in 1898, with the Central American territories following later. The United States eventually has 62 states in total. Eurasian War During the early stages of the Eurasian War, the U.S. was forced to enter into the war when the entire Pacific Fleet is wiped out at Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces. Japanese forces occupy the U.S. states of Hawaii, the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone. Additionally, Japan occupies northern Australia, raids California, and the Imperial Japanese Navy shells Acapulco. Consequently, the United States cannot open a second front in Europe. Alliance with the Nazis against the Draka is also impossible, due to the influence of the Jewish lobby and a Draka threat to supply Japan with nuclear weapons-related materials in the event of U.S.-German peace. By 1943, the U.S. became a member of the Alliance for Democracy. The United States turned the tide against Japan with victory in the Battle of the Sea of Cortez, in which jet fighter-bombers armed with guided bombs played a crucial role. Hawaii was liberated in late 1943, and half of the surviving Imperial Japanese Navy was destroyed in a nuclear cruise missile attack on the Truk naval base. In late 1944, Tokyo was destroyed by a nuclear cruise missile—killing over 150,000 people including the Imperial Family. By July 1945, Japan surrendered due to the Draka's expansion into East Asia and the war was officially over. However, the aftermath of the war led to the Draka becoming one of the most power superstate on Earth, forcing the U.S. and the Alliance for Democracy to become overly cautious of the Domination during a lengthy decades long cold war. Category:The Peshawar Lancers Category:Countries Category:Nantucket Series Category:Lords of Creation Series Category:Draka Series